Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #271

Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project

By Ken Haapala, President

What Did Trump Learn? President Trump just returned from a meeting with the G-7, a group of industrialized nations. According to reports, some of the leaders of the G-7 countries tried to convince Trump of the need to commit to the Paris Agreement limiting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and he did not do so. Speculation abounds on what he will do in the coming weeks regarding the Agreement. He had stated he would announce a decision after the G-7 meeting.

Those advocating the Paris Agreement have never offered physical evidence that CO2 emissions are the primary cause of global warming / climate change. They just assumed it. So did the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and other political bodies such as the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), with a budget of about $2.5 billion per year. It will be interesting to see if mere assumptions, accompanied by great publicity, will be good enough for President Trump to commit to a program that may cause massive damage to the US economy.

A brief examination of the economies of the G-7 countries is in order. Following is a list of the G-7 with the real gross domestic product (GDP) for 2018 as forecasted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in round brackets or parentheses.

The Group of 7 (G7) countries are Canada (2.34%), France (1.59%), Germany (1.74%), Italy (1.03%), Japan (0.83%), the United Kingdom (0.96%) and the United States (3.00%). For many economists, an economic growth rate of 2% or less is stagnation.

From this, one can conclude that there is no other country on the list whose economic policies are desirable for the US to imitate. It should be noted that from 1947 to 2016, the annual growth rate in the United States averaged 3.2%. But, during the Obama administration the annual growth rate did not exceed 2%. This was the worst recovery from an economic downturn (2008-2009) since the Great Depression (1930s). The forecast of 3% growth for 2018 may be optimistic, but it is consistent with US long-term growth. Mr. Trump has a powerful economic reason to abandon the Paris Agreement and no scientific justification for staying in the agreement.

The economies of countries such as the UK, Germany, and Italy are stagnating in part due to government policies that did not appropriately account for the increases in electricity costs that occur in shifting from reliable fossil fuel generation to unreliable solar and wind generation. Germany is compounding its problem by shifting from reliable nuclear generation and is being forced to expand power plants burning brown coal, which produces more CO2 than black coal (a higher thermal content).

[“Real gross domestic product (GDP) is GDP given in constant prices and refers to the volume level of GDP. Constant price estimates of GDP are obtained by expressing values of all goods and services produced in a given year, expressed in terms of a base period. Forecast is based on an assessment of the economic climate in individual countries and the world economy, using a combination of model-based analyses and expert judgement. This indicator is measured in growth rates compared to previous year.”]

###################################################

Quote of the Week. “There is no greater mistake than to try to leap an abyss in two jumps”– David Lloyd George, During WWI, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, then Prime Minister [H/t Leo Goldstein]

###################################################

Number of the Week: Number of the Week: 1927 – 90 years ago

###################################################

Legal Tar Pit? Ironically, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme, a parent organization of the IPCC, provides clear reasons why the US should vacate its participation in the Paris Agreement and all related issues stemming from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Issued jointly with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in the City of New York, the report provides a review of litigation procedures and techniques that groups can use against governments and corporations that are “not doing enough to fight global warming” – whatever that means.

The executive summary demonstrates that the lack of physical evidence is no obstacle to the UN organizations to claim harm:

“Impacts such as heat waves and destructive coastal storms are growing in frequency and severity as a result of human-cause emissions. The costs to governments, private actors, and communities of dealing with these impacts are significant.

“National and international policymakers have struggled to develop effective means of addressing both the underlying causes and the effects of climate change. Climate change mitigation and adaptation policies have emerged slowly and have often set targets based on political feasibility rather than the consensus scientific understanding of what is required to stabilize the climate at an acceptable level.

“National and international policymakers have succeeded in creating some legal frameworks for climate action. Many nations have laws or policies addressing aspects of the climate problem, and the Paris Agreement provided for a catalogue of national commitments toward the goal of averting average global warming in excess of 1.5°C and 2°C. Litigants have begun to make use of these codifications in arguments about the adequacy or inadequacy of efforts by national governments to protect individual rights vis-à-vis climate change and its impacts.” [Boldface added.]

As Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) said: “Crucial legal predicate for pushing governments is code for the hook that activist green groups, attorneys general and courts are looking for.” “The key question, which this cryptically addresses, is the legal risk that results from staying in Paris,”

No doubt, the state attorneys general and politicians who tried to censor independent review of the lack of physical evidence supporting the notion that CO2 is the control knob of climate are looking at how to apply this UN document for their purposes. The legal tar pits that it creates will not benefit the public but only special interest groups seeking to limit economic growth. See links under After Paris!

****************

Book Review “Clexit”: In “Clexit: For a Brighter Future” retired GE power engineer / executive Donn Dears writes a clear, succinct argument exposing the myths that the United States can safely and economically convert from fossil fuels to solar and wind. In so doing, he bares the folly of those who assert that the nation should remain in the United Nations’ Climate Treaties, including the UNFCCC and the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Agreement is so poorly justified that at the last moment then-President Obama demanded substantial changes to give it the appearance of a non-binding agreement. Yet, many politicians act as if it is as binding to the US as a treaty, even though it has no Senate approval as required by the Constitution for a binding treaty.

In Clexit, Mr. Dears demonstrates that it is impossible to cut human carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions sufficiently to slow or stop climate change. To perpetuate this impossible concept and require major sacrifices by the US public in such a vain effort is an immoral waste of resources.

The Paris Agreement became effective on November 4, 2016 when 55 countries, emitting 55% of world-wide human CO2 emissions, ratified it. Even though Mr. Obama did not bother to submit it to the Senate for approval, his Administration transferred hundreds of millions to a fund under the agreement, the Green Climate Fund, to be administrated by the UN – the same officials who helped create the myth that human CO2 and GHGs emissions are the primary cause of climate change, which has been ongoing for hundreds of millions of years. A goal of the agreement is to have the fund grow to $100 billion per year.

The Paris Agreement calls for the US to cut GHG emissions by 80% by 2050, a concept proposed in 2007 in the US Senate, on which the Senate did not act. In a series of chapters surprisingly free of jargon one normally expects from an expert on electrical power, Mr. Dears demonstrates that unless there are unforeseen, breathtaking, technological breakthroughs, the stated goals of the Agreement are hopelessly fanciful.

Mr. Dears demonstrates that the Agreement is very one-sided, against industrialized nations. Based on 2014 data, the US and EU28 (28 countries in the European Union) emitted less than 25% of CO2, while China and India emitted more than 36%, mostly for electricity. Yet, the agreement calls for the US and EU28 cutting emissions by 80% by 2050, with a world-wide cut of 50% (including China and India). Emissions from China and India can continue to grow until 2030.

Dears argues that world-wide emissions cuts of 50% cannot be achieved, even if the US, Europe, Russia, and Japan totally stopped all emissions!

Similarly, Mr. Dears addresses the myth that solar and wind can replace fossil fuels in the US. There is no cost-effective, reliable, non-fossil fuel, non-nuclear back-up that is commercially available. Solar and wind require full back-up when they fail.

Apparently, the politicians and others advocating the UN agreements and solar and wind as substitutes for fossil fuels cannot comprehend the scope of the problem. How many of those stridently advocating solar and wind would choose to use medical facilities, or even electronic devises, if they were powered exclusively by solar and wind?

Anatomy of a Deep State:Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel has a lucid article on the EPA Office of Scientific Integrity illustrating why the Trump administration will be in a long battle to restore scientific integrity in many agencies in the US government. Political operatives with science in their titles are no assurance that their performance and actions will be determined by observations and physical evidence. Efforts to change will be stridently resisted by those who benefit from the political state. See Article # 1.

****************

Peak Oil Reversed? Those who recall the dire claims of the 1970s that the world will run out of oil (and the US out of natural gas) by the end of the 20th century may find an article on peak oil demand amusing. It is difficult to assess how much of this notion is based on realistic trends and how much on current fads that may vanish. See Article # 2.

****************

Number of the Week: 1927 – 90 years ago. In his book discussed above, Donn Dears states that pumped hydro storage was first used in 1927 by Connecticut Power and Light. This involves pumping water uphill, when electricity is in excess; to be run through turbines and generate electricity when it is needed. There have been no major breakthroughs in recent years to supplant it. As Dears illustrates many of the same organizations that oppose fossil fuels also oppose pumped storage — the only proven technology on a commercial scale to help make solar and wind reliable.

“I have suggested how anyone who pays electric bills can petition the USEPA to do this.”

“Key Points of New Press Release:

1. Just released, with even more definitive research findings that make it even more certain that CO2 is not a pollutant but rather a beneficial gas that should not be regulated.

2. If the Endangerment Finding is not vacated, whether the current administration likes it or not, it is certain that electric utility, automotive and many other industries will face ongoing EPA CO2 regulation.

“Given recent research showing that carbon dioxide emissions have no significant effect on global warming/climate change, a total of $2.5 trillion seems a mite expensive for doing something that will have no significant effects on the alleged danger posed by climate change.”

Defending the Orthodoxy

Catastrophic climate change – a reminder of what the IPCC actually said

“Because of existing provisions within the Clean Air Act and others embedded in the Paris Agreement, remaining in it would subject the United States to significant litigation risk that could upend your administration’s ability to fulfill its goal of rescinding the Clean Power Plan.” [Senators Jim Inhofe, Mitch McConnell and others.]

“Environmentalists argue the Clean Air Act, which calls on the EPA to regulate dangerous air pollutants, requires some kind of rule on power plant emissions. The EPA has also not revoked its ‘endangerment finding,’ a position that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health.”

“’Paris represents basically the rest of the world applauding as we penalize ourselves and our economy,’ Pruitt said.”

“Our results indicate that changes in moisture availability have stronger near-term impacts on vegetation dynamics than changes in temperature.” From the abstract.

[SEPP Comment: Does not recognize CO2 enhancement. The author of The Atlantic article obviously does not realize there is very little old growth forest in the East, including the George Washington National Forest.]

“Based in Hobart, the $20 million centre will examine the role oceans will play in future climate change, including their influence on floods and drought. It will be half funded by China’s Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology.”

“There is a consensus of evidence that human activity is causing all of recent global warming. Not some of it. Not even most of it. All of it.”

[SEPP Comment: The Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University has defined the all-time basis of scientific truth! “If I agree with his claims, he is an expert; if I disagree, he is not an expert.”

“Hampton Roads is experiencing the second-highest rate of sea level rise in the country, behind New Orleans. Scientists say it’s a result of melting ice sheets and warming seas, but aggravated locally by land subsidence caused by groundwater extraction and a phenomenon known as post-glacial rebound.”

“Norway is Europe’s largest petroleum liquids producer, the world’s third-largest natural gas exporter, and an important supplier of both petroleum liquids and natural gas to other European countries.”

“About 97% of all electricity generation in Norway comes from hydropower.”

“Officials and leaders from over 110 countries will gather in Beijing on May 14-15 for the first ever Belt and Road Forum. China’s ambitious attempt to boost economic growth across a vast area stretching from its southeast coast all the way to Africa is known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).”

“China was involved in 240 coal power projects in 65 of the Belt and Road countries between 2001 and 2016.”

“Climate change over the past two million years has boosted human evolution by forcing us to adapt to changing conditions and allowing us to migrate to new areas.

“Researchers found that far from hindering our development, periods when the earth is either cooling or warming up have actually been highly beneficial.

“Experts from the National History Museum and Cambridge University have identified five key time periods when shifts in global climate have resulted in accelerated social and genetic evolution.

“Chris Stringer of London’s Natural History Museum and author of The Origin of Our Species told the Sunday Times: ‘Climate change has been a major player in our evolution. It created the conditions that encouraged our early ancestors to come down from the trees and later to spread out of Africa and across the globe. It made us what we are today.’

“The Royal Society is holding a conference this week where details of recent research will be released. The scientists are keen to point out they are not suggesting that modern global warming is beneficial.” Daily Mail, 21 Nov 2011[Boldface Added]

Exposing some of the difficulties the new administration faces in changing Washington, the journalist writes:

“On May 8 a woman few Americans have heard of, working in a federal post that even fewer know exists, summoned a select group of 45 people to a June meeting in Washington. They were almost exclusively representatives of liberal activist groups. The invitation explained they were invited to develop ‘future plans for scientific integrity’ at the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Meet the deep state. That’s what conservatives call it now, though it goes by other names. The administrative state. The entrenched governing elite. Lois Lerner. The federal bureaucracy. Whatever the description, what’s pertinent to today’s Washington is that this cadre of federal employees, accountable to no one, is actively working from within to thwart Donald Trump’s agenda.

“There are few better examples than the EPA post of Scientific Integrity Official. (Yes, that is an actual job title.) The position is a legacy of Barack Obama, who at his 2009 inaugural promised to ‘restore science to its rightful place’—his way of warning Republicans that there’d be no more debate on climate change or other liberal environmental priorities.

“Team Obama directed federal agencies to implement ‘scientific integrity’ policies. Most agencies tasked their senior leaders with overseeing these rules. But the EPA—always the overachiever—bragged that it alone had chosen to ‘hire a senior level employee’ whose only job would be to ‘act as a champion for scientific integrity throughout the agency.’

“In 2013 the EPA hired Francesca Grifo, longtime activist at the far-left Union of Concerned Scientists. Ms. Grifo had long complained that EPA scientists were ‘under siege’—according to a report she helped write—by Republican ‘political appointees’ and ‘industry lobbyists’ who had ‘manipulated’ science on everything from ‘mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate science.’

“As Scientific Integrity Official, Ms. Grifo would have the awesome power to root out all these meddlesome science deniers. A 2013 Science magazine story reported she would lead an entire Scientific Integrity Committee, write an annual report documenting science ‘incidents’ at the agency, and even ‘investigate’ science problems—alongside no less than the agency’s inspector general.

“And get this: ‘Her job is not a political appointment,’ the Science article continues, ‘so it comes with civil service protections.’ Here was a bureaucrat with the authority to define science and shut down those who disagreed, and she could not be easily fired, even under a new administration.

“Ms. Grifo perhaps wasn’t too busy in the Obama years, since EPA scientists were given carte blanche to take over the economy. She seems to have been uninterested when EPA scientists used secret meetings and private email to collude with environmental groups—a practice somewhat lacking in scientific integrity.

“She has been busier these past few months. In March the Sierra Club demanded that the EPA’s inspector general investigate whether the agency’s newly installed administrator, Scott Pruitt, had violated policy by suggesting carbon dioxide might not be the prime driver of global warming. The inspector general referred the matter to . . . the Scientific Integrity Official. So now an unelected, unappointed activist could pass judgment on whether the Senate-confirmed EPA chief is too unscientific to run his own agency. So much for elections.

“There’s also that ‘scientific integrity’ event planned for June. Of the 45 invitations, only one went to an organization ostensibly representing industry, the American Chemistry Council. A couple of academics got one. The rest? Earthjustice. Public Citizen. The Natural Resources Defense Council. Center for Progressive Reform. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Environmental Defense Fund. Three invites alone for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Anyone want to guess how the meeting will go?

“

This is a government employee using taxpayer funds to gather political activists on government grounds to plot—let’s not kid ourselves—ways to sabotage the Trump administration. Ms. Grifo did not respond to a request for comment.

“Messrs. Pruitt and Trump should take the story as a hint of the fight they face to reform government. It’s hard enough to overcome a vast bureaucracy that ideologically opposes their efforts. But add to the challenge the powerful, formalized resistance of posts, all across the government, like the Scientific Integrity Official. Mr. Obama worked hard to embed his agenda within government to ensure its survival. Today it is the source of leaks, bogus whistleblower complaints, internal sabotage.

“Pitched battle with these folks is no way to govern. The better answer is dramatic agency staff cuts—maybe start with the post of Scientific Integrity Official?—as well as greater care in hiring true professionals for key bureaucratic posts. The sooner department heads recognize and take action against that deep state, the sooner this administration might begin to drain the swamp.”

****************

2. Get Ready for Peak Oil Demand

There’s a growing consensus that the end of ever-rising consumption is in sight. The big question that many oil companies are debating: When?

“The world’s largest oil companies are girding for the biggest shift in energy consumption since the Industrial Revolution: After decades of growth, global demand for oil is poised to peak and fall in the coming years.

“New technologies that improve fuel efficiency are starting to push down the amount of gasoline and diesel that’s needed for transportation, and a consensus is growing that fuel demand for passenger cars could fall as carbon rules go into effect, electric vehicles gain traction and the internal combustion engine gets re-engineered to be dramatically more efficient. Western countries’ growth used to move in lockstep with their energy consumption, but that phenomenon is starting to decouple in advanced economies.

“While most big oil companies foresee a day when the world will need less crude, timing when that peak in oil demand will materialize is one of the hottest flashpoints for controversy within the industry. It’s tough to predict because changes to oil demand will hinge on future disruptive technologies, such as batteries in electric cars that will allow drivers to travel for hundreds of miles on a single charge.

“Hitting such a plateau would mark the first time that demand has declined even when economies are growing since Col. Edwin Drake jury-rigged a pipe to drill for oil in Pennsylvania in the late 1850s. Yet, for many companies and investors, the question isn’t whether this immense turning point will happen—it’s when.

“Getting that timing right will separate the winners from the losers, and it has become a major preoccupation for energy economists and a flashpoint for controversy within the industry.

“But some big European producers predict that a peak could emerge as soon as 2025 or 2030, and they are overhauling their long-term investment plans to diversify away from crude oil. Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Norway’s Statoil SA are placing bigger bets on natural gas and renewables, including wind and solar.

“‘Nobody knows’ when demand will peak, says Spencer Dale, group chief economist for BP PLC , which issues a widely watched annual outlook. The company’s base case calls for a peak in the mid-2040s—with the caveat that it could come sooner or later. ‘There are huge bands of uncertainty around that,’ Mr. Dale says.

“The uncertainty stems from a host of variables, including the pace of technological changes that will make renewables and electric vehicles more cost-competitive; the toughness of new regulations aimed at curbing greenhouse-gas emissions and climate change; and the rate of economic growth in developing countries, which is currently driving the increase in oil demand.

“Those factors are making it much harder to predict long-term demand than in the past, according to many energy-industry executives and economists.

“Calling it accurately is high stakes for an industry sitting on trillions of dollars of crude-oil reserves. Whenever it finally does happen, the tipping point from global oil-demand growth to decline will reverberate through the energy world, knocking down oil prices and some companies’ shareholders.

“The idea that electric vehicles and alternative forms of energy will increasingly displace crude oil is one that big-name investors are starting to ask about.

“‘We have lots of clients in the financial sector asking about peak demand,’ says Linda Giesecke, research director at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consulting firm. ‘It’s because you have this threat of disruptive technology’ such as electric vehicles, she says. ‘If it is disruptive, it will come fast. That’s why it’s so hard to forecast.’

“Case in point: Shareholders of Occidental Petroleum Corp. voted this month to ask the company to assess long-term impacts of climate change on its business. It was the first time such a proposal passed at a major U.S. oil-and-gas company. BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, supported the resolution, marking the first time it went against management wishes to support such a climate resolution

“Historically, producing crude oil has been a growth industry, if a cyclical one, with energy demand moving in step with economic output. Since 1965, global oil consumption has increased from 30 million barrels a day to nearly 95 million.

“During those decades, companies built strategic plans around the assumption that they would always need to find more oil, and analysts obsessed over whether there would be enough crude in the ground to fuel growth. When oil hit its high over $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008, some of the run-up was fueled by concern about hitting maximum output, or so-called peak oil, the point at which normal declines in output from producing oil fields outpace the industry’s ability to develop new supply.

“Now, peak-oil theory has been turned on its head, and forecasting peak demand has taken center stage.

“Some companies, particularly European energy outfits, see the tipping point coming soon enough that they are talking about it publicly, and overhauling their long-term investment plans to accommodate a greater emphasis on natural gas and renewables. Shell and Statoil say peak oil demand could come as soon as the mid-2020s, though around 2030 is more likely; the chief executive officer of France’s Total SA says he wouldn’t be surprised if it happens by 2040.

“But the American companies are betting on a more bullish future. Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. oil company, sees no end to the world’s need for more crude. In its forecast through 2040, Exxon predicts that oil will remain the dominant fuel source, as demand for both plastics and transportation grows, mostly because of increasing incomes across Asia. It does expect to see huge strides made in fuel efficiency, with the vehicle fleet improving to 50 miles a gallon from the current 30 MPG, but thinks the growth in other areas will have a bigger influence on oil use.

“Chevron’s outlook is similar: It expects roughly half the world’s energy needs will be met by oil and natural gas combined by 2040. Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Saudi Arabian Oil Co., says demand is unlikely to peak before 2050.” [The report continueshighlighting some of the disagreements,]

SUMMARY: After a lengthy discussion on the need for better batteries, the reporter writes:

“Little wonder, then, that big-name companies such as Microsoft Corp. are testing the waters. The software and cloud-storage giant is in the midst of a three-year research deal with the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute at the University of Texas-San Antonio to determine how utility-scale battery technology might help it better and more cleanly manage the power needs of its 100 or so data centers around the world.

“This summer, Microsoft plans to test a number of battery technologies at its $1 billion Boydton, Va., data center. The idea is to “see what chemistries work best” and to determine how best to integrate them into the local electrical grid, says Brian Janous, Microsoft’s director of energy strategy.

“What’s alluring, he says, is that renewables anchored by large-scale batteries eventually could give their owners not just the ability to generate some portion of their own power needs, but to produce and save surplus power that can be sold back to the grid. Indeed, a corporate utility-scale battery system might in itself become a “grid asset” if integrated, say, into a utility’s emergency backup power plan to cope with outages, Mr. Janous says.

“While many current projects employ familiar lithium-ion—the battery of cellphones, laptops and electric vehicles—others are testing more esoteric chemistries and technologies. Prominent among these are liquid electrochemical systems known as flow batteries that are constructed in large tanks and have the theoretical advantage of being unlimited in size and capacity. To add battery capacity, you increase the size of the tank or link a series of tanks together.

“Flow batteries are made by taking electrolytes—a brew of metallic salts such as those that can be rendered from common metals—and pumping them through an electrochemical cell. The cell consists of a positive and negative electrode, separated by a membrane. Electricity is generated by the exchange of ions between the cathode and anode. The electrolyte flowing one way charges the battery; to discharge it you reverse the flow.

“To understand the scale of these things, consider that a flow battery installed in 2014 on an almond farm in Turlock, Calif., is housed in four cylindrical, three-story-high, beige metal tanks. The battery serves the farm’s solar-powered irrigation system.

For long-duration storage, flow batteries are the most likely candidates among all current technologies because they can be easily scaled to gargantuan size, and they have few moving parts and a long working life, says Mr. Srinivasan. What’s holding them back is cost: Most flow batteries use the element vanadium as an electrolyte, but it is very expensive. “We need dirt-cheap materials,” he says.

“Both Harvard and MIT are working on materials research, and Argonne is using sophisticated computer technology to invent synthetic compounds that can replace expensive natural ones like vanadium. “We’ve made tremendous progress with batteries in the past four years alone. With batteries it’s all about finding the magic materials,” he says.”

26 thoughts on “Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #271”

“Even though Mr. Obama did not bother to submit it to the Senate for approval, his Administration transferred hundreds of millions to a fund under the agreement, the Green Climate Fund, to be administrated by the UN …A goal of the agreement is to have the fund grow to $100 billion per year.”

If the world spent $100 billion/year on, say, detecting global asteroid threats or finding a cure for cancer or influenza, we could probably get the job done in a couple of decades. Instead the plan is to give it to unelected UN bureaucrats so they can continue to ride in limousines and earn six figure salaries. It’s an absolute disgrace.

Just throwing money at a problem doesn’t fix it. When you have unelected bureaucrats feeding at the government trough there is incentive to not find solutions. Look at the US wars on drugs, cancer, terrorism, etc. Lots of money spent with little to no benefit

“Mr. Dears demonstrates that unless there are unforeseen, breathtaking, technological breakthroughs, the stated goals of the Agreement are hopelessly fanciful.”
Mr Dears obviously is not up to date on the latest automotive battery prices and the very real likelihood that a new method of manufacturing lithium battery cathodes (now being produced in a demonstration run) can cut in half the already low battery prices, to less than $100 per kWhr, the point at which an electric car becomes cheaper to produce than a gas powered vehicle, and, as always, is cheaper to maintain and to fuel. The reasons for domination by electric vehicles does not in any way depend upon any consideration of vehicle emissions. I also doubt that Dears can be considered an energy expert if he avoids mentioning molten salt nuclear reactor developments around the globe that promise energy prices below any technology, including fossil fuels, There are no technological obstacles standing in the way of any of the various molten salt reactor designs.
They all are in the stage of proving their design concepts, by logic and/or demonstration reactors.
Some are practically ready to go commercial at this time (Moltex Energy’s extremely practical design that takes advantage of currently produced components and their proven history).
Talking and worrying about future carbon emissions I consider irrelevant. My strongly held opinion.

The reasons for domination by electric vehicles
===========
on golf courses and warehouses perhaps.

what has not been considered is the large amount of energy required to charge vehicles in any numbers. the average houses uses about 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent in energy each day. the average car uses quite a bit more than that. so even allowing for efficiency gains, an enormous increase in electrical generation capacity and infrastructure is required to implement electric vehicles in any numbers. double or triple current capacity may not even come close. this cannot be done overnight. it will take many decades and is largely unrealistic, unless baseline coal and nuclear plants are brought on-line in large numbers. this is likely politically unacceptable in many countries, and thus electric vehicles are not likely to succeed without a huge change in the political climate.

Just wondering who will be the first to purchase a franchised “electric vehicle recharging station” . How much will it cost them to buy the franchise, what will be the wholesale cost of electricity and what will be their markup, what about location purchase or rent costs, what about upkeep and maintenance costs, what about employee costs, and in the end they will have to make a sensible profit or why bother at all.

Yes, the infrastructure requirements to support wide-spread deployment of electric-powered vehicles don’t seem to get much mention in the otherwise favorable stories about improvements in battery technology. I also don’t see much mention of the recharge time – I can “recharge my ICE-powered car in about 10 minutes anywhere in the US – there aren’t that many electric-recharging stations at the moment, and how many of them will it take to support mobility if it takes as little as one hour to recharge the batteries in a car?

The article above about flow batteries has me wondering – what will be the maintenance and repair issues of pumping all those metallic salts through the system? Likewise, all those molten salts pumped through the reactors?

Lastly, I doubt that the flow batteries will be particularly useful in transportation applications, owing to their size and weight.

Lastly, how will we design aircraft to use batteries of any kind – they are large, and heavy. Maybe someone can weigh-in (sorry) on the mass and size of batteries and the attendant thrust-producing devices to power a B747 or an A-380.

In the UK, around 80% of the price of fuel is tax, if/when EV use reaches a certain point I think it is safe to assume that an equivalent or greater proportion will be added to the price of the electricity, so that the treasury take is not impacted by the use of electricity.

As to maintenance, most modern IC engines require very little by comparison with those of only a decade or so ago, oil and filter changes every 12,000 – 15,000 miles and that’s about it. It now transpires that EVs – due to increased weight – generate higher tyre and brake wear than ICs too, so taking into account the average depreciation of the battery, I can’t see there being any particular advantage to EVs over ICs from the point of maintenance costs.

However, I can put over 500 miles’ worth of fuel in my diesel Mercedes in about two minutes, and I regularly have to fill up on long journeys away from my residence, so charging tome would render EVs impractical for my purposes. As it happens, I always observe the filling stations – especially on motorways – are well patronised by other travellers, there would be a massive logistical problem if the average residence time to refuel vehicles rose from minutes to hours.

Then there is the dreaded ‘Range Anxiety’ problem. In over half a century of driving, I learned very early on the wisdom of carrying a spare can of fuel at all times, and it has saved my bacon numerous times. Nor it is a matter of planning, a large detour due to an accident on the motorway could unexpectedly add several tens of miles to a journey, thus cancelling any refuelling plan. Or one could be stuck in stationary/slow moving traffic on a motorway at night in cold weather, which will mean the use of headlights and heaters.

All in all there are a huge number of engineering, logistical and infrastructure problems to be overcome before EVs make a significant impact on car use, it will take decades at least.

In case this was missed: Even the democrats are taking issue with Trumps advisor on coal.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a Democratic U.S. Senator from the heart of coal country in West Virginia, told Breitbart News exclusively that he was shocked and disappointed in White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn’s anti-coal comments in Europe this week.

You’re comparing apples to oranges. The current state of EV technology in no way compares to gas/diesel technology. EVs have limited driving range, long charge times, reduced capacity and cab heating infeasibility during winter. Until that changes they will only be useful for limited, less convenient driving (assuming their cost becomes low enough to justify purchasing such a handicapped vehicle).

Thanks for bringing up winter conditions – I forgot to mention in my comment above the decrease in battery power when it gets cold. How will one compensate for that in places where it is very cold for months at a time? How will battery-operated aircraft wok, since they fly in very cold air? Battery heaters could work, I guess, but how much of the battery power do they take, how big are they and how much do they weigh?

Li-ion batteries cannot be charged when it’s below freezing without incurring permanent damage. (I didn’t know that or I would have included it in my first response.)

“Doing so even once will result in a sudden, severe, and permanent capacity loss on the order of several dozen percent or more, as well a similar and also permanent increase in internal resistance. This damage occurs after just one isolated ‘cold charging’ event, and is proportional to the speed at which the cell is charged.

But, even more importantly, a lithium ion cell that has been cold charged is NOT safe and must be safely recycled or otherwise discarded. By not safe, I mean it will work fine until it randomly explodes due to mechanical vibration, mechanical shock, or just reaching a high enough state of charge. ”

“Many battery users are unaware that consumer-grade lithium-ion batteries cannot be charged below 0°C (32°F). Although the pack appears to be charging normally, plating of metallic lithium can occur on the anode during a sub-freezing charge. This is permanent and cannot be removed with cycling. Batteries with lithium plating are more vulnerable to failure if exposed to vibration or other stressful conditions. Advanced chargers (Cadex) prevent charging Li-ion below freezing.

Advancements are being made to charge Li-ion below freezing temperatures. Charging is indeed possible with most lithium-ion cells but only at very low currents. According to research papers, the allowable charge rate at –30°C (–22°F) is 0.02C. At this low current, the charge time would stretch to over 50 hours, a time that is deemed impractical. There are, however, specialty Li-ions that can charge down to –10°C (14°F) at a reduced rate.”

It is very hilly where I live which drains battery power very quickly. Add in having to drive with headlights on, windscreen wipers working, heater on, two people and their luggage and batteries will deplete rapidly. As far as practical technology is concerned batterirs still have some way to go. I like the ideas of electric cars though and i currently have an electric bike which I can easily recharge with a small solar panel.

Perhaps hydrogen cars are a better bet. I understand that four or five different models are on sale in the STates.
Tonyb

I’ve been reading a Telsa forum. When it’s below freezing, pack heaters are used to heat the battery before charging. Reading what these guys go through just to get their car charged in freezing weather reminds me of reading linux forums and all of the things they had to go through to get their systems working right. Blech! Great technology on both counts, but I don’t want a relationship with my cars or computers. I just want them to go.

Mr. Happala, your list of GA nations early in the article does not list GDP, as stated, but rather GDP growth. Is this estimated? It must be I suppose because it lists 3% for the U.S. and we have not seen such growth for a long time.

In the late 1980s there was briefly an office of scientific integrity, staffed by a few fascistic bumblers, who used advanced pattern recognition among their other tools to root out falsified data and plagiarism. The sorry history of this office one can read about in the book “The Baltimore Affair”. Naturally the Democrats latched onto this office and many of its investigations in hopes of hounding their enemies. Unfortunately the Democrats were long on bombast and innuendo; and short on facts and understanding. Science Magazine, much as it must have caused psychic pain to admit so, said the Republicans appeared to have a far better grasp of the process of science than did the Democrats. The FBI was involved too, and comes off as utterly benighted and idiotic.

The idea behind Michael Hammer’s argument is that the greenhouse effect blocks and delays radiation from earth’s surface to space, so if warming is due to an increase in the greenhouse effect, OLR from the top of our atmosphere should be either temporarily decreasing as CO2 increases, or remaining the same while surface temperatures increase. Instead OLR from the top of the atmosphere has been INCREASING.

“However if we look at the longer term trend shown in the very first graph at the start of this essay
we find OLR has increased by 2.5 watts/sqM in the 30 years between 1980 and 2010 (30 years is
the claimed interval necessary for reliable estimation of climate trends) . The global temperature
rise over this time is 0.4C according to UAH (satellite) and 0.5 according to NASA GISS (land sea
surface measurements). That translates to an incremental sensitivity of between 6.25 watts/sqM/C
and 5 watts/sqM/C. That is significantly higher than indicated by the above data (3.21 predicted
and 2.39 actual). It means that the average emissivity of earth has increased over the last 30 years
which is the exact opposite of what the CAGW theory would suggest. “

Latest GDP from BEA for Q1 2017 is +1.2% annualized. This is a kind of “real” number, as far as Govt. numbers go. It is a long way from 3%, which would probably require Trump’s tax cuts to happen this week.

Government Fiscal Year (GFY) Q1 2017 was October – December 2016. President Trump wasn’t even in office then. But your point is well taken – there will have to be a lot of growth to get to 3% for GFY 2017. We’ll probably not see the effects of any Trump changes until GFY 2018, or, maybe, even GFY 2019.

“Germany is compounding its problem by shifting from reliable nuclear generation and is being forced to expand power plants burning brown coal, which produces more CO2 than black coal (a higher thermal content).”

The statement about brown coal is factually incorrect.

For any given moisture and ash content, brown coal has lower CO2 emissions per MJ of energy than ‘hard coals’ like anthracite on a mass basis.

The reason is easy to explain: hard coals have less hydrogen than brown coals as a % of mass. Exchanging 5% of the carbon mass for hydrogen mass increases the energy content because hydrogen has four times the energy of carbon, per kilo.

The combustion of hydrogen releases more energy per unit volume of combustion gases resulting in a higher gas temperature and higher heat transfer rate.